


kill them with kindness

by poseidon



Category: House of Cards (US TV)
Genre: Blood Kink, F/F, Mindfuck, Non-Linear Narrative, Post-Season/Series 05, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-13
Updated: 2017-06-13
Packaged: 2018-11-13 16:58:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11189427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/poseidon/pseuds/poseidon
Summary: Light versus dark. And that line where they meet.She can be kind. She can kill. She can do whatever she wants.She can do anything.





	kill them with kindness

_Light versus dark. And that line where they meet._

She can be kind. She can kill. She can do whatever she wants.

She can do anything.

* * *

She has her first cigarette alone, standing by the window with the moon shining in and illuminating her skin in its soft glow. She takes a slow drag and watches the smoke dissipate as it floats outside. She’s always loved the moon.

Tom is standing beside her. He casts no shadow – or, maybe, he casts many shadows, crisscrossing and intersecting with hers as he says, “You were never the moon. You were always the sun.”

Claire blows into his face until he disappears.

* * *

The words ‘Madame President’ send a chill down her spine, every time they’re said. And everyone is saying them. Talking heads on TVs as they spout out words, words, words and try to make sense of it all. The throngs of American people, half said in anguish, the other half in awe. Her staff, always at her heels, whispering them like a curse.

Two simple words that have put her name down in history in a way that they would never remember Frances.

No one would remember the second president to resign. No one would remember the second president to be put under investigation. No one would remember just another man who made a mess.

But the first female President – now that is something else. A legacy that is hers, only hers. First female Vice President, first female President.

It’s all hers and hers alone.

And to commemorate it, she has her first interview with Kate Baldwin. They’re in the White House, in the Roosevelt Room, cameras and lights flashing all around them. Claire’s hair curls around her ears and she crosses her legs, expression serene and effortless.

Kate pretends to be happy while there are people watching and yet she can’t hide the death in her eyes, can’t stop her voice from cracking when she says, “Madame President…”

The corners of Claire’s mouth curve and she wills them down. Polite and serene. You are the leader of the free world. You have won. You don’t need to prove anything anymore.

When the interview ends, they do not shake hands. And in the corner of the room, Tom sighs and says, “You would’ve liked her. Maybe in another life.”

“A little in this life, too,” Claire replies. She dusts off her coat and smiles for the cameras, and they love her for it.

They all love her. And no one can blame them.

* * *

Frances may pretend he doesn’t, but he always valued loyalty. It’s why he kept Doug. He never liked the idea of opening up his heart and his secrets to a new face, even when Doug failed and failed and failed.

But Claire has no such reservations. But her staff doesn’t know it. They see her at Tom’s funeral and they see her stoic and sympathetic, and they know she cannot be anything like her husband. Not as ruthless, not as devastating, not as destructive.

“Little do they know,” Tom says, when they’re in the church. He’s smoking now, sitting on a folding chair by the aisle. He presses the cigarette between his lips and he blows out and there’s nothing there. He turns to face her. “You’re just as bad as he is.”

She doesn’t respond. Her hands are folded in her lap and she keeps her gaze focused up ahead at the altar, at the words being said. Bible verses and prayers.

Tom exhales and ash billows out. “You’re a monster, you know?”

 _We’re survivors_. The memory rings loud and true in her ear, and she replies, “And what’s wrong with that?”

He doesn’t respond. A smile plays on his lips and he presses them to her cheek.

It feels cold.

* * *

Frances calls and calls and calls.

She never answers.

Why would she?

Did he ever wonder why she would?

Did he ever think about her at all?

* * *

The choice to make Jane her new chief of staff is an easy one. She has a way with people, a way to make them trust her and listen to her and believe in her. It’s a skill Claire has acquired at a distance but has yet to develop at a closer, more personal level.

Oh, she can seem like she’s interested, seem like she’s being polite – every woman can – but all the while, she just wishes Jane would just shut up. Her voice is grating and her subtle accent reminds her of Frances and sometimes, she just wants it to stop.

“She reminds me a little of you,” Tom says, during a meeting with the senior staff. He’s standing right behind Jane, hands on the couch as he looks down at her, considering. “You and him. If you were rolled into one person. She’s got your touch and his candor. It really works for her.”

“She has too much of his candor,” Claire says. Jane’s mouth moves but no words come out and Claire listens intently anyway, nodding slowly and letting it all wash over her.

Out of the corner of her eye, Tom laughs. And it’s one of those days where she imagines a spike running through his body and killing him all over again.

The staff meeting ends but Jane does not leave immediately. She gives the room a cursory glance, then shakes her head. “I liked that painting in your old office,” she says after a moment.

“I did too,” Claire replies.

The kiss, she initiates, and it’s for no other reason than the fact that she can. She can do whatever she wants now. There’s no Frances stopping her, no false moral code that he developed but only applies to her. No, she can do whatever she wants now.

And so she leans over and kisses Jane, smudging her lipstick with her tongue and biting gently on her lower lip. Jane’s hands reach her hips and she pulls Claire over until she’s straddling her sides, pulling down the zip of her dress until her back is exposed to the open air. It’s a loosening, liberating feeling, and she wishes she’d done it before.

Tom runs a finger down her spine and sighs into her ear. “You shouldn’t do this,” he says.

“Fuck you,” Claire mumbles. She grabs one of Jane’s hands and slides it under her dress until she finds her cunt and Jane manages to take a hint. Her fingers are lithe and quick and they don’t tease, rubbing circles around her labia and brushing against her clit until Claire is holding back a slight moan.

She leans forward, mouth pressed against the nape of Jane’s neck, and she bites down. Hard. There’s a metallic taste in her mouth and Jane says something but Claire doesn’t hear it, not when her body tenses and her vision goes white and she lets out a sigh.

Later, when she’s cleaning Jane’s wound and putting on the bandage, Tom says, “She said you’re hurting me.”

Later, when she checks in the bathroom, there’s still blood in her mouth. She regrets it, what she did.

But does she?

Does she?

* * *

The divorce papers come back unsigned.

She delivers them again with stricter instruction.

They come back, signed, with a single droplet of blood.

Claire smiles.

* * *

She wears a white dress to the State of the Union. Tom walks by her side, through the hands and the cheers, through the adoring admirers and reluctant supporters. His hands are in his pockets and she can feel the cold heat from him.

“It would’ve been a motif if you’d worn red,” he points out, at one point.

Claire shrugs. “I wouldn’t look good in red.”

“You look good in everything,” Tom says. “You look good, for someone with blood on their hands.”

Her nails are painted red and if she stares at her palms long enough, she thinks she can start to see the blood. She clears her throat quietly and walks up to the podium.

What is the state of our union? You tell me.

* * *

Seth says she shouldn’t go, but she goes anyway. She hates – _hated_ – Conaway, but he was an integral part of her plan – _their_ plan (she should give credit where credit is due, as reluctant as she is to give it) – and she should honor his demise.

“Bullet is an easy way to go,” Tom says. The windows are rolled down and his hand is out the window, cigarette smoking outside.

“It is,” Claire agrees.

Tom nods. “Poison is more painful.”

Claire bites the inside of her cheek and tries not to laugh.

Hannah doesn’t look like she’s shed a single tear when Claire greets her. There’s something lacking in her eyes, or maybe, there’s something in them that’s overshadowing everything. She was once much brighter, she was once a woman of some importance, and now she is a husk of nothing, widow of a man who did nothing.

She will not be remembered.

The children start to cry and Claire bites back a smile because of course, because she told you so.

And then, in the private meeting, just the two of them, Hannah is the to bridge the gap and then there are teeth and there are lips and metal and red, red, red, and her lips come back streaked in dark red and Claire.

Claire, she bleeds for this. She kisses harder. She presses Hannah against the wall and Hannah claws at her back, writhing, moaning, drawing blood.

Tom is there too, always watching, but this time he speaks. “You like them broken,” he says, “don't you?”

Claire doesn't respond. She's pulled up Hannah's dress and her nails dig into one of her sides as her other fingers shove themselves into her cunt, one and one, sliding in and out as slowly as she wants to.

Hannah cries underneath her, all her superiority and morals stripped from her, as Tom says, “You always liked them a little broken. Adam, Edward, me, Frank.”

Claire keeps ignoring him. Hannah is wet, so wet, and everything tastes of iron and salt and Claire’s lips are somewhere on Hannah and Hannah barely makes a sound when she comes. Barely a sound except for the briefest and stifled sounds of sobbing.

“You like that power, don’t you?” Tom asks. “The power you have over them, knowing you’re stronger, better than them. Don’t you?”

Her hands card through Hannah’s hair, long and soft locks, as her back presses against the wall and Hannah’s tongue makes its way inside her cunt. Her nails cut into her thighs and her teeth graze against her clit and Claire, she –

“Don’t you?”

“Yes,” Claire breathes. “Yes.”

* * *

“I have a dream,” Claire says, one night. She has a glass of wine in one hand and a cigarette in the other. The window is open and the moon – the moon is gone. The stars are out.

Tom looks up at the sky and back down at her. “What dream?”

“A dream where I kill Frances instead of you,” she says, plainly. DC is so bright out at night. She can barely see the stars. But even though she can’t see them, they’re there. She takes a sip of wine. “I would’ve preferred that.”

“I’m sure you would have,” he says. He’s still looking at her. “You’re not the moon.”

“I’m not,” she agrees. “I’m the sun. And everyone else is Icarus. They just flew too close to me.”

“They just flew too close to you,” Tom repeats. He lets out a sigh and it comes out as smoke. “The trial is coming soon.”

“I know,” Claire says. She breathes out smoke, and it comes out red. Everything these days is red. Red, white, blue.

Tom’s lips are blue. They’ve always been, since she killed him. He’s still looking at her. “They’ll come for you too, you know.”

At that, Claire laughs. It comes out high and cold and aloof all at the same time. She drains her entire glass of wine and says, “Oh, they can certainly try.”

**Author's Note:**

> find me on [tumblr](http://poeorgana.tumblr.com/)


End file.
